| Thomas Friedman’s visit to AUC stirs up a storm on campus |
| By Hana Zuhair |
| On January 9, three-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman joined Nabil Fahmy, dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, for ‘Coffee Hour’ at the American University in Cairo (AUC)'s Downtown campus near Tahrir Square. The talk was met with a protest from the university's leftist movement angered by administration's decision to invite the controversial journalist.While Friedman talked about the region and Egypt’s revolution, in particular Islamists and democracy, he is also known for support of Israel and for being a staunch advocate of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Before the event, tweets against Friedman’s talk at AUC flew across the social network Twitter, while the university’s Quds [Jerusalem] Club, which supports the Palestinian cause, created a Facebook group called ‘No to Thomas Friedman, Supporter of War Crimes, at AUC’. Even with general disagreement with Friedman’s views, there was an evident divide among students over whether he should have been invited to speak on campus. On the Facebook group, some students called the demand to ban Friedman from talking at AUC as “undemocratic,” while others strongly disagreed. Hany Fayez Ishak wrote on the group’s wall, “How dare you call for democracy if you want to ban someone for having different opinions and views? What if I am for the Zionist state? Are you going to kick me out of school? If he is really that bad just boycott the event.” Randa Ali, a Mass Communication Senior, said that “As an Arab,” she doesn’t believe the man who “has been supporting the war on Iraq in the name of democracy and justified crimes made against Lebanese and Palestinian [people] by the Zionist occupier, should be welcomed in my country; and definitely not in my university.” Critics of the journalist said that Friedman isn’t in a position to preach Egypt about democracy while he supports war crimes. Youssef Mohamed, a Mechanical Engineering Junior and a member of the Quds Club and AUC’s leftist’s movement, says that he told Friedman during the question and answer session, “you can’t be against Arabs all the way then speak to us about democracy.” “[Many] people thought [Friedman] had the right to come [to AUC] for what they called practice of democracy, a good number [of people] thought we were against his presence,” adds Ali, speaking with Egypt Today. “I thought the majority were for him speaking but when he was told during the questions and answers [session] by one of the students that he wasn't welcomed, almost every single member of the audience applauded.” A Question of Freedom It wasn’t just Friedman's views that inspired the protest against the Coffee Hour talk, but what protesters call the university administration's double standards about invited speakers. “They denied us from bringing [pro-Palestine scholar] Norman Finkelstein, who supports our cause, before the revolution,” claims Mohamed, who helped organize the Friedman protest. President of the Quds Club Roqaya Tblieh says that before the January 25 Revolution, the administration gave the club a hard time when they wanted to bring in pro-Palestine speakers, such as Palestinian writer and activist Azmy Beshara. Tblieh says the administration required them to get approval from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As a Palestinian, Tblieh admittedly takes issue with those who support crimes against her people, family and friends, and she claims almost all of her fellow Egyptian students feel the same. Nevertheless, Tblieh still believes the administration can bring in speakers with different viewpoints. “The administration has the right to bring whoever they want […] but when the administration brings Zionists to speak, then we have the right to express our opposition as well,” says Tblieh. The online Tahrir Channel's coverage of the speech showed some students wearing Palestinian scarves as others held pictures of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. The leftist student movement, which goes by the Twitter handle @AUCleftists, tweeted a photo of a student holding a sign that read “Why is a supporter of war crimes at AUC?” The protesters say they were only trying to show their opposition to Friedman’s beliefs and stands in a civilized manner. According to Mohammed, the group presented Friedman with a written statement that included his quotes on the Iraq War and Israel and an explanation on how students were not “happy with his presence.” “We just asked our questions and expressed our views in a decent manner,” says Tblieh. |
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